Latest News & Updates

News & Updates

Message from the Chair - February 2019

Trustees were pleased to take part in School Tours last month over a three-day period. Generally, one half hour was spent touring each school, as well as the maintenance building and Sechelt Learning Centre. Principals shared their school growth plans and discussed key features that make their schools unique. Most of the actual tours were student-led, further impressing us with their knowledge and school pride.

A culinary delight was laid out for the guests and those celebrating the Trade-In-Trades Pro-Cook graduation. Congratulations to our students, and of course a big thanks to Chef Barry!

As Amanda will speak to, the BCPSEA AGM took place on January 23rd and 24th. This was followed by a two-day BCSTA/BCPSEA Trustee Orientation joint venture to help trustees learn more about their roles in respect to bargaining, as well as providing a refresher on board basics. There was a 46% turn-over in trustees at the last election.

Strategic Plan consultations are taking place with all stakeholders between now and March: staff, parents and PACs, student focus groups, DSLT, district committees, Aboriginal Advisory Circle and community members through an online survey. There are a series of questions being asked at these consultations:

Tell a one sentence story of something that stands out for you in your K to 12 education.

What do you think makes for an amazing education for students?

What are the implications for staff?

What are the implications for community?

What are the implications for budget priorities?

With these ideas in mind, take a look at our current Strategic Plan. What goals do you feel absolutely need to stay?

What goals do you feel should be added to our new plan?

We look forward to working together on this very important project.

The Amended 2018/2019 Budget approval will be considered tonight and Preliminary Budget Consideration for 2019/2020 will be discussed next week at the Operations Committee. Last week, Vice-Chair Leech, Trustee Hampvent, Secretary-Treasurer Weswick and I went to the BCSTA Leadership Workshop. The two day workshop focused on Strategic Planning and Budget. Nic was thrilled that we were all able to take an extensive look through our budget, and was more than happy to answer every detailed question we had as we scrutinized it for our workshop. BCSTA has allotted $1500 to each district to help fund this workshop.

The Board has been invited to District Day on Feb 15th, a day chock-full of pro-d workshops and topped off with Shelley Moore speaking. If you have time, check out Shelley’s “Five Moore Minutes” on YouTube. Shelley is an amazing speaker and we can’t wait to attend. We appreciate the invite!

One more up and coming event is the musical theatre production of Fiddler on the Roof. Performance dates have been announced. (I’m almost positive Superintendent Bocking will have already spoken to this!) We are all very excited to see the performance and are over-the-moon proud of our theatre troop!